Kate Wakeling
came scolding. It thought
no one was listening anymore.
It scratched at every surface,
setting down the frost, over and
again like a grievance.
It shook the air to crystal;
how stiffly we had to breathe.
The light was ruined
and the black trees terrified.
They could only shoo us away.
I knelt before winter
and said, winter, let us be.
I showed it the quality
of my discouragements,
how time and again, every
scrap of warmth in my soul
drains from me like a dirty bath.
I clung to winter’s hand.
I said, we know who you are.
You don’t have to keep telling us.
Kate Wakeling is a writer and musicologist. Her pamphlet, The Rainbow Faults, is published by The Rialto. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Stinging Fly, Magma and PERVERSE, among others.
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